War Child--Rogue One

I

Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Mine began in Jedha, a city I had no idea I would eventually return to.

I was born five years before the destruction of the Jedi temples, and the rise of Darth Vader from Anakin Skywalker's corpse. My mother, Camellia, was a seamstress, making her living by sewing robes for the Jedi at the temple. My father was a guardian of that temple.

He had interesting friends.

One, a young man, Chirrut Imwe, who would bounce me on his knee whenever I was upset, until I laughed and slipped away to leave them in peace. All he ever talked about was the Force. He claimed he was sensitive to it, yet never entered as an apprentice. He said he was too old.

His friend, also a chum of my father, Baze Malbus, was gruffer, cynical, and doubtful of the Force. And yet he continued to guard the temple.

When the temple was destroyed, the three of them were out in one of the many cantinas in Jedha. They survived.

Most were not so lucky.

We moved. My mother, my father, and I.

We went to Jakku for a while. There was no money there.

Then on to Tatooine.

My father tended to go to desert planets, where he could feel at home in the heat and sand.

We lived on Tatooine for a year.

My father worked at a large moisture farm farther away than I could walk, being a little six-year-old boy.

He would come home, exhausted, but put on a cheerful face as soon as he saw me. "Cass! How goes the home?"

And I would tell him what I did and who came and what mother did, and he would look at her with the look I didn't decipher until long after they were gone, and ask, "Well, Camellia, is this true?"

She would clarify and correct, then invite us all over to eat.

One day, he comes home different.

"Cass!" he calls, "how goes the house?" But he doesn't smile.

I tell him, and he rustles my hair. He doesn't ask my mother for clarification. He whispers something in her ear.

Mother gasps, and puts a work-weathered hand over her mouth to respond. I walk closer to listen, but Father tells me that I should go make sure his astromech is still in the shed.

It is, and I know that he knows, but I don't leave the shed until he comes to me. "Father?"

"Cassian." He never calls me that. Something is wrong, and it makes my stomach ache.

"What happened, Father?"

He sighed. "Cassian, do you know about the Empire?"

I nod, yes, I do, Mother tells me about it, and I know she doesn't like them.

"They've occupied the planet now. We aren't safe anymore."

"What is occupied?"

Father sits next to me and puts his hands on his knees. "Tatooine used to be a neutral planet, that means didn't side with the Empire or the revels, but now stormtroopers have been station in all of the major outposts."

"But were aren't at an outpost."

"Our records are." He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "Cassian, what I am about to tell you can never be repeated, okay?"

I nod, slowly.

"In the last year, I have conducted anti-Imperial acts from Tatooine, not many because there were no Imperial forces here, but enough to make me a criminal to them."

I watch his face.

"We have to leave, Cassian." He rubs his temples briefly with his fingertips, then stands. "Come along, lets help your mother pack."

We leave the next day in a speeder, heading to Toche Outpost.

Father catches a glimpse of someone and stops. "Wait here," he commands, vaulting out of the craft. "Owen!"

The man, who I recognize as the father of the boy Mother watches from time to time, turns to speak with him.

After a few minutes, he returns.

"Will they change their name?" Mother asks, barely audible over the engine.

"No. He says Skywalker is a broad enough name, and Anakin never knew where they went anyway."

"He grew up her though. Don't you think he would look here for his son?"

"Walls have ears, Camellia."

And that's the end of the conversation.

We make it to some hangar of a sort, this memory is fuzzy for me, and board a ship. Father decides that we will not go to another desert planet. Instead, we go to Fest, an icy planet.

We're only there a week before trouble finds us.

Or, more specifically, my father.

We are out on the daily walk Mother insists on.  I'm so bundled up I can hardly waddle along, so I hang on Father's hand as we shuffle through drifts of snow.

He stops suddenly, and bends down.  "Cass, I see something over in that alcove."  He points to a metal building with an inset shelter in the side.

"What is it?" I whisper, with wonder in my voice.

"Why don't you go see?"

I've just reached the alcove (empty of treasures) when a blaster shot rings through the cold air.

I turn just in time to see my father fall.

"Father!" I scream.

"Stay back!"  He grimaces.

I can't stop crying.  I can't walk out for fear of being shot.  I fall over, and the layers upon layers of clothes prevent me from getting up.

My face is away from Father, and I roll, with much effort, over.

He's gone.  I look around to find him, and see a figure being carried away by a troop of snow troopers.

They knew about my father, somehow, and how he had escaped.  But why they never come for my mother and I, I shall never know.

A nosy yet nice neighbor, Amya Jeach, finds me, with tears frozen to my eyelashes.  She knows what happened, somehow, and picks me up to take me home.

My eyes don't leave the spot where my father fell until we round the corner.

This is the day that my fight begins.